North Sea oil and gas drilling approved as Cabinet push back against 'insane' Net Zero plans
The Daily Telegraph, 8 February 2022Six North Sea oil and gas fields are set to be given the green light this year, The Telegraph has learnt, as Cabinet figures push back against “insane” demands to go further on net zero.
Rishi Sunak has asked Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, to fast-track the licences amid Treasury fears over the economic impact of making the UK a net zero carbon emitter by 2050.
It is the latest sign of tensions between Number 10 and Number 11 after the Treasury held back plans for bringing down NHS backlogs and demanded better value for money.
The Telegraph understands that Mr Sunak is also preparing to resist Boris Johnson’s high-spending instincts over public sector pay, measures to limit migrant Channel crossings and the scrapping of free Covid tests.
On Monday, the Prime Minister moved to play down suggestions of a rift with Mr Sunak – seen as a future Tory leadership contender – by responding “absolutely not” when asked whether he has doubts about the Chancellor’s loyalty.
He said: “Everybody in Number 10 and the Treasury are working together in harmony to deal with the big problems that the country faces and clearing the Covid backlogs.”
The six oil and gas areas, which have already been given a preliminary licence by ministers, are expected to be given approval by Britain’s oil and gas regulator to begin construction of rigs in the North Sea.
An Oil and Gas Authority map showing the approximate areas for exploration projects
Despite calls for all domestic fossil fuel extraction to be halted, ministers have pledged to continue to support oil and gas production while renewable energy sources are developed.
Drilling of oil and gas could begin in the Rosebank field, to the west of Shetland, and at the Jackdaw, Marigold, Brodick and Catcher sites in the central North Sea. A sixth site, Tolmount East, had been intended to be approved by the Oil and Gas Authority last year but is now expected in 2022.
The combined reserves of all six sites are thought to be enough to power the whole UK for six months, with 62 million tonnes of oil equivalent fuel in the ground.
A Whitehall source told The Telegraph: “The Business Secretary is pushing for more investment into the North Sea while we transition – not just for jobs and tax revenue, but for domestic energy security.
“Kwasi is actively resisting insane calls from Labour and the eco-lobby to turn off UK production. Doing so would trash energy security, kill off 200,000 jobs, and we would only end up importing more from foreign countries with dubious records.
“Over the long term, we need to generate more secure, affordable, low carbon power in the UK to achieve greater energy independence. The more clean power we generate in the UK, the less exposed consumers will be to gas prices set by international markets.”
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How does it feel that your denial of human caused carbonisation is even considered anti-science by the GWPF?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/08/tories-fighting-net-zero-plans-are-dragging-climate-into-new-culture-war-experts-say?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I think you must be mistaken, as I accept that humans are causing an increase in the CO2 in the atmosphere, which I take it is what you call "carbonisation". So I am in agreement with the GWPF. Very interesting article you linked to in the Guardian. Good to see that some politicians are realising that the policies of getting to net zero are far more damaging than the small amount of global warming caused by the increase in CO2.
ReplyDeleteThe link between CO2 increases, climate change and extreme weather is easy to evidence:
Deletehttps://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/climate-change/what-is-climate-change
https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/impacts-climate-change-one-point-five-degrees-two-degrees/
ReplyDeletecarbon brief took 70 peer reviewed science papers to show the small difference of temperature change on earth what would be the consequences. Small average temperature changes on earth do produce profound consequences.
An easy example out of this is think back to the heat wave in western Europe that killed 10s of thousands of people that had never experienced one before. No airconditioners, elederly living in attics died.
Scroll down to temperature. Europe must noww adapt to coming heat waves that are longer and stronger than before. Its not only humans, livestock, crops, wildlife etc. French are now buying land in Britain to grow grapes since their own are not doing well now in France.
I have only taken the easy one to talk about in this limited format of the blog. There are mult examples of peer reviewed studies supporting differences of a small temperature change.
Fossil fuel burning is now the equivalent of being on a dangerous drug. Its the long transition to 100% RE.
Hi Renewableguy, if you look back in recent history, such as the past century, you will find large numbers of heatwaves, droughts, floods, etc. These are not evidence of climate change, they are examples of extreme weather. Extreme weather is something we will always encounter all over the world and we have to learn to cope with it. There is NO evidence that these events are getting more common or more intense. What is happening is that we are getting these events much more widely reported and filmed and some people are using these reports and films to try and convince us that the climate has somehow changed dramatically, but it is simply PROPAGANDA!
ReplyDeleteIn a stable temperature world the number of record breaking will pretty much equal the record breaking cold. What has been happening on earth is record breaking warm records are clearly out numbering record breaking cold records. This effects our heat waves in which they become stronger, longer, hotter and more frequent.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nationalacademies.org/based-on-science/global-warming-makes-heat-waves-hotter-longer-and-more-common
Global warming will intensify the health effects of heat waves.
Heat waves are periods of unusually hot weather, typically lasting for 2 or more days, outside the historical averages for a given area. Heat waves have happened in the past, but climate change is making heat waves longer, more extreme, and more frequent. We know this by observing how often new daily high and low temperature records are set. Daily temperatures are measured at hundreds of weather stations around the globe. In the United States, high and low records at weather stations were set at about the same rate in the 1950s, yet since the late 1960s, the number of record daily high temperatures measured each year has been increasing at a faster rate than record daily low temperatures. This shift is largely due to far fewer record daily low temperatures in recent decades. That pattern was evident in January 2019, when there were 17 cold record temperatures set around the world and 269 heat record temperatures.